Source: www.theindependent.com
Author: Tracy Overstreet

Jerry True just has the music in him. “Anything I touch — it plays for me,” he said. So when throat cancer took away his voice box — and the air he needed to play the saxophone — he took up the drums.

But that was only until he could manufacture a way to play his Selmer mark VI B-flat sax with an air compressor.

“It took me two years to get it just right,” True said.

True is now back on the band circuit playing in the front row for the Paul Kothe band of Hastings.

“We’ve been playing together for 35 years,” True said of Kothe.

“He sounds just like he always did,” Paul Kothe said. “He has a beautiful sound.”

True was front and center at the Feb. 21 Kolache Shoot-Out in Elba playing his saxophone with the Kothe Band. The band paused long enough for judges to announce the kolache winners and then for the audience to sing “Happy Birthday” to True — his 83rd.

True was raised in Arcadia and taught himself how to play the sax when his father, a part-time string instructor, brought the instrument home and couldn’t make it work.

“He sounded like a Canadian goose,” True said through the Servox voice simulator he touched to his throat.

But the instrument Leonard True couldn’t get to work, simply sang for his son.

“I was in a dance band by the time I was 12,” True said.

True’s mother Nellie “didn’t have a choice.” Her son was ushered out nearly every Friday and Saturday night for entertainment across Central Nebraska.

Along the way, True picked up a talent for the clarinet — and like his father, could also play the guitar and banjo.

The dance gigs continued as he moved from Arcadia to Hastings and began a 34-year career as a lineman for the Southern Public Power District. His late wife of 59 years, Georgene, and their five kids all enjoyed the music over the years.

Then came retirement. The same year True hung up his electrical pole climbing gear, he became raspy and was diagnosed with cancer of the vocal chords. Attempts to temper the cancer failed. The only cure was to remove his entire voice box.

As the surgery some 20 years ago was completed, True asked doctors and nurses when he could play his sax again. No one answered. He was discharged from the hospital, walked into his house and picked up the Selmer.

Nothing.

The next day, he tried again.

Nothing.

Determined not to be silenced, True raced up to Grand Island and bought a Ludwig drum set. The Kothe Band, which had taken a hiatus for Kothe’s over-the-road trucking business, was reforming. True jumped in to keep the beat for the band from the back row behind the trap set. Years went by as he beat the drum, but longed to again play his saxophone.

Then he got the idea about using an air compressor from a cancer magazine. True fiddled with the technology. He used oxygen tubing to run from the air compressor into his mouth. He fashioned a small disc that allows him to rechannel the air and use it as his own.

saxophone

“I kid him, ‘Don’t forget to open your mouth, we don’t want you floating off. Let the air out once in a while'” Kothe said.

The 20 to 30 pounds of pressure in his mouth is a challenge, but through a thicker reed, a stop valve on the tubing and his own talent and control, True has mastered the sound.

“I can get pretty loud,” True chuckles.

He tucks a “very quiet compressor” under his band stand, wraps the tubing around a microphone stand and slides it into the corner of his check when it’s time to play.

Besides playing the saxophone with the air compressor, Kothe is now trying to perfect its use for his trumpet.

The Paul Kothe band, which features five regulars and sometimes a sixth, has a regular schedule playing dances at the Hastings Eagles Club. They have jam sessions at the Hastings VFW and also play at the Platt Duetsche in Grand Island and the Vets Club in Ord.

Next month, the Paul Kothe Band will travel to Wichita, Kan. for an April 18 show at the Midwestern Kansas Polka Club.

Kothe said True “brings a lot of experience to the band.”

As far as True and Kothe know, True is the only one playing the saxophone with an air compressor and traveling as a regular member of a band in the United States — or anywhere, Kothe added. During a dance, the band will play about 150 songs during three one-hour-long segments with two 15-minute breaks in between.

While True doesn’t use his own air, he also doesn’t use music.

True’s music is “all in his head and heart,” Kothe said.

“Reading notes is playing music like someone else tells you,” True said. “I play like I feel.”